Traumafession:: Psychonator on Tales of the Wizard of Oz

I’ve followed this blog for years and have contributed to solving a few Name That Traumas. I thought I’d share a kindertrauma of my own. I was a sickly kid and would contract the flu at least three times during the long Michigan winters. I also had (have) a very vivid imagination (my brother called me “impressionable,” a term he got off of the back of the “Disney’s Sounds of the Haunted House” which creeped the bejesus out of me.) But I digress.

Being home-bound, a latch key kid, I’d entertain myself between bouts of vomitting by watching day time TV. There was one particular cartoon (this would’ve been mid to late sixties) that set with me wrong. It was “Tales of the Wizard of OZ.” Totally creepy. Every episode was frought with downbeat drama. All the characters were drawn in a surreal, unnatural way, especially for this time period. The “Munchkins,” if I recall correctly, looked like fat rain drops with arms and legs. For some reason, I always watched this when I was sick; so, sort of like only ever having drank Seven Up when I was sick, this cartoon (and the taste of Seven Up) cannot be seperated from the light headed feeling of a high fever and the seasick feeling of a sour stomach!

The theme song is uber creepy to me to this day. The background music harkins back to the appearance of the wicked witch from the classic movie (not such a good choice, IMHO). The first scene shows the Tin Man pulling a prank on the Cowardly Lion, punching him in the kisser and making him cry. I think I need a Zoloft.

9 responses so far ↓

Love this traumafession! I totally relate to the triply feeling of being sick as a kid. If I remember correctly The Cure album “The head on the door” was named after a hallucination Robert Smith had as a kid with a fever!

“High on a hilltop near your home…” — God I love that record. (But who doesn’t?) What a talent was that Laura Olsher — gorgeous voice.

Anyway, I dig on your kindertrauma big time, Psycho. Ecstatically, wonderfully creepy stuff there. Strangely enough, though, that widening (yellow-brick?) road there toward the end of the intro reminds of “Rainbow Road” in Super Mario Kart!

And I’m sorry to hear you were a bit of a sickly, latchkey child. I was a latchkey, but it didn’t happen ’til I was in my early teens. Anyway, it really kinda sucks when that happens during one’s developing years: illness and isolation.

Am I the only one that found the Cowardly Lion’s phallic resemblance disturbing? He has the same phallic nose as Joe the Camel but his entire head looks even more phallic when viewed from behind. Take a look at the back of his head at 00:22 in that Free Trade video above. That can’t just be a coincidence…

I remember watching Tales of the Wizard of Oz when I was a kid too. I do remember liking it, but also that it was a little weird. It aired on Sundays and usually there was slim pickings. L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the late 80s used to scare me. Something about the animation and the music that really creeped me out.